Gallery: The A-Z of gardening

Fotolia, Postmedia News05.24.2012

A for Acid Soil
Soil - perfect soil for rhododendrons, azaleas, heathers and hydrangeas - that has a pH of less than 6.5 and turns litmus paper red. Also see pH.

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Aeration: A way of getting air to grassroots by poking holes into the ground. Essential for great lawns.
Alkaline soil: The opposite of acidic soil, this chalky soil has a pH of more than 7.5 and turns litmus paper blue.
Annual: Hardy and half-hardy annuals are plants that complete their life cycle in a single season, going from seed to flower or fruit before dying.

Fotolia
/ Postmedia News

B for Biennial
Plants that complete their life cycle in two seasons, starting from seed and establishing leaves and a stem in the first year and flowering the following year. Some examples: Foxgloves, wallflowers, canterbury bells.

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Bare-root: A plant that has been dug up and packaged without soil around its roots. Mail orders from nurseries are mostly dispatched bare-root.
Bedding plants: Mostly annuals (although can include biennials) that are "bedded out" in spring to provide summer colour.Fotolia
/ Postmedia News

C for Compost
Dark, blackish humus formed from the decomposition of organic matter. Can be used to enrich soil or as a mulch.

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Cambium: The green layer of living tissue just below the woody surface of a branch. A sign that your plant is still alive.
Cultivar: Short for "cultivated variety," this refers to a plant produced through hybridization, rather than found in nature.
Carpet bedding: A style of planting, popular with the early Victorians, involving the tight planting of annuals to create intricate floral patterns.Fotolia
/ Postmedia News

D for Deadhead
Removal of faded flowers in order to: 1) Maintain tidy appearance of the garden; 2) Promote flower production by preventing the plant from developing seeds; 3) In some cases, such as with delphiniums and lupins, to induce a second flush of flowers later in the season.

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Die-back: The dead part of a shoot or branch that has been incorrectly pruned.
Division: What you do to perennials every three or four years when they have grown big enough to be split into more plants. Division is usually done in spring or fall. Dormant: Winter sleep for plants. Technically, it means there is little or no cellular activity. It's something plants do to survive winter and save energy for the new season.
Drip line: Area around a tree where the tips of roots are located, usually where water drips from the canopy of leaves.Fotolia
/ Postmedia News

E for Espalier
The art of training a tree into a variety of shapes or patterns. Perfected by French gardeners, espaliering is one way of training a tree (or shrub) to lie flat against a wall or trellis in a symmetrical pattern. A popular espalier design is called the Belgian fence.Matthew Trump
/ Wikimedia Commons

F for Forcing
Getting plants to flower out of season by manipulating temperature, humidity and light. Fastigiate: A plant with a column-like shape to it.

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Frost pocket : An area of the garden where cold air gets trapped during winter. Only the tougher, more hardy plants can survive in frost pockets.Handout photo
/ Postmedia News

G for Grafting
Propagating by taking the stem or bud of one plant and joining it to the root or stem of another. Shown here, a good example of a whip graft that has "taken."

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Genus: The family name for a group of plants related to one another. It is the first word in a plant's proper name: Lonicera, Fuchsia, Cotoneaster, for example. A plant has three names: genus (first), species (second), cultivar or variety (third) as in Acer campestre 'Postelense'.Chris Hibbard
/ Wikimedia Commons

H for Heading Back
Pruning back the main branches of a tree or shrub by a third to half.

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Hardening off: Gradually acclimatizing a plant to being out of the warmth of the greenhouse in order to get it ready for planting into the garden.
Hardiness: Measure of a plant's ability to withstand extremes of cold and frost or harsh conditions. Also see Zones.
Heeling-in: What you are doing when you temporarily plant a tree or shrub in a holding bed until you are ready to find a permanent home for it.
Humus: Dark brown organic material formed from the decomposition of vegetable and certain animal matter. Humus is necessary to enrich soil and give it the necessary life to nourish and sustain plants.
Hybrid: A new plant produced by crossing two genetically different plants from the same or a closely related species. Not all hybrids are improvements on the parent species.Larry Wong
/ Postmedia News

J for Juvenile Foliage
New leaves that look different in their shape, size and colour to the plant's more familiar adult foliage. Shown here, detail of Juniperus chinensis shoots, with juvenile (needle-like) leaves, and adult scale leaves and immature male cones.

L for Loam
The best kind of soil; moderately fertile, composed of clay, sand and humus with a texture that is neither too sandy nor too heavy.

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L Layering: A way of propagating in which a trailing branch of a plant is bent down and anchored below ground level until roots form and the newly established plant can be cut from the parent.
Leaf mould: Rotting or partly decomposed leaves that can be used as a mulch or dug into the soil to create useful organic matter.Fotolia
/ Postmedia News

M for Mulch
A layer of bulky organic matter usually placed around perennials to reduce moisture loss, inhibit weeds, improve soil and protect plants from frost. Good mulches include grass clippings, well-rotted compost and leaf mould.

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Manure tea: Water in which compost has been allowed to soak to form a mild, fertilizing 'tea.'Adrian Lam
/ Postmedia News

N for NPK
Key plant food ingredients of fertilizer: N for nitrogen, P for phosphorous and K for potassium. The numbers represent the percentage of each element in the mix. One way to remember what each chemical does is to memorize this saying: Little Red Flower (L for leaf, fed by nitrogen; R for roots, strengthened by phosphorous, F for fruit or flower, promoted by potassium.)

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Native plant: Species that grows naturally in a certain location and not created by human cultivation.
Naturalize: Informal planting that mirrors nature's own relaxed style and design to create the impression that the plants are native.Mark van Manen
/ Postmedia News

O for Oxygenator
A submerged water plant that helps keep ponds clean by releasing oxygen into the water.Nicholas Bott
/ Ottawa Citizen

P for Perennial
A plant with the ability to survive winter and live on for several growing seasons.

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pH: Measure (1 to 14) of acidity or alkalinity of soil. Lilac won't thrive in acidic soil, rhododendrons hate alkaline soil. The lower the pH, the higher the acidity.
Pollarding: Cutting back the main branches of a tree to within centimetres of the trunk to create a distinct globe effect.
Pricking out: Careful removal of seedlings from the original seed-tray into a roomier pot or growing space.
Pinching back: A way of encouraging bushiness in a plant by using your finger and thumb to pinch off growing tips.Handout photo
/ Postmedia News

Q for Quercus
The botanical genus name for the oak family. Few English people know that their famous mighty oak is really called Quercus robur.Ailsa Francis
/ Postmedia News

R for Rootbound
This is a bad sign or indicator that a plant has been left in a container or pot too long, allowing the roots to become tangled and choked.

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Rhizome: A horizontally creeping root system from which shoots and roots develop.
Reversion: What happens when a plant goes back to the colour or growing habit of its parent.Fotolia
/ Postmedia News

S for Stock Plants
The parent plants from which cuttings are taken for propagation purposes to ensure new plants are an exact clone.

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Species: A collection of individual plants with the same characteristics when grown in the same conditions.
Standard : A tree or shrub that is trained to grow a straight stem clear of branches.
Stress: A cry for help. Wilting or discoloured foliage are two signs of stress, signals that a plant is suffering from a lack of water, food or too much sun, water or fertilizer.Fotolia
/ Postmedia News

T for Topiary
The shaping of shrubs and trees into decorative forms.

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Trace elements: The same thing as micronutrients; various chemicals that plants need in small doses in order to grow.
Tissue-culture: A high-tech way of propagating by "cloning" a plant by taking tiny pieces of tissue and growing them in test tubes.
Top-dressing: Putting a thin layer of new soil or compost around plants or on lawns to add nutrients to the soil.
Tuber: A fleshy root or stem that stores nutrients for later use.
Tufa: Porous limestone rock ideal for growing alpine plants.Handout photo
/ Wikimedia Commons

U for Umbrel
A rounded, often flattened head of flowers produced at the top of a long stem. Good example: the seed/flower head of an angelica plant.

V for Vermicomposting
Composting using worms to do the job normally done by microorganisms.

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Variety: The same as cultivar: the variation of a species.
Variegated: Leaves that are spotted or edged with a different colour from the main one.Handout photo
/ Postmedia News

W for Weed
Two definitions: 1) A plant growing in the wrong place; 2) A plant for which a useful purpose has not yet been found.

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Wild garden: Informal planting style that attempts to imitate nature. Popular with avantgarde landscape architects, not with most homeowners.Handout photo
/ Postmedia News

X for Xeriscaping
Method of landscaping with drought-tolerant plant material to reduce the use of water by 50 per cent.

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X: the symbol that denotes that a plant is a hybrid species.Ward Perrin
/ Postmedia News

Y for Yakushimanum
One of the best mediumsized species of rhododendrons for the small garden because of its compact form.Fotolia
/ Postmedia News

Z for Zones
The world is divided into 10 climatic zones that are graded according to the average annual minimum temperatures. Zone 1 is the coldest (below -46 C) and Zone 10 is the warmest (-1 C to 5 C). Plants that thrive in gardens here are generally those that can survive in Zones 1 to 8.
More information here.Handout photo
/ planthardiness.gc.ca

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